February 9th, 2026

Responsibility

Before I start my Taoist journey, I believe there's a critical set of information I've neglected; Justine is not responsible, God is different than religion, and my relationships are consentual bcause I am, and have in fact been, virtuous.

Justine is a model of Christian virtue ethics based on assuming adherence to the policies proscribed; her life is the essential negation of life itself in the name of the divine. She does not negate herself for God, she negates herself for Religion. This eternal negation of the self, the constant self minimization prevents her from doing anything truely useful, like letting the priest hang himself to death. This is because the Justinian Virtues, the Christian Virtues, are not Godly Virtues, they are Bourgeois Virtues (and Aristocratic, though Angela Carter often leaves off this redundancy in her analysis). These virtues are created by those that do not work to make those that do work obedient, and as Sade himself and Juliette prove, these virtues are completely ignored by those that do not work. These virtues bind Justine and those like her to her current class and capabilities, but notably one "classic" virtue is missing from this, responsibility, to herself and others. According to Dr. Victor Frankl "In a word, each man is questioned by life, and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life, he can only respond by being responsible." When Juliette, unrestrained by Christian Virtue goes about her exploits, she does not preach a gospel of Evil. This "Ultimate Libertine" is not actually living a productive or useful life; she is simply absorbing the surrogate goals of the will to power and the will to wealth as a means to infiltrate the oppressor class. She does not fundamentally change the game theoretic political system that incentivized such brutality, and thus also fails for lacking something. The identification of this Sadean (as in the synthesis of Justine and Juliette) virtue, responsibility, is important.

This is not to say that every Theist is completely useless at answering the Existential Vacuum. Religion is a tool created by the ruling class to control those who would seek emancipation. If God exists, then the collective societal understanding of her word is a complete bastardization. Consider the fact that when people imagine a Bible story (in say Jeopardy!), they often imagine one from Genesis. That's a lot of the Bible frankly underrepresented and often misunderstood. Christian Virtues likely have very little in common with the actual book of faith, especially considering that less than half of those proclaiming Christian Religion haven't read the Christian Text.

This takes me on to the more personal. I am loved, and I love back. Frankly the list of people I truly love is very small, but I know that in that list it is reciprocal. They assure me so. In fact, because it is a conscious choice, and they continually make that choice it matters more. I'm not loved by anyone unconditionally, it's very conditional and I just so happen to meet all the conditions continually. I can stop being loved any time, but every day I am loved just a little bit more. These feelings are based on virtues of some sort. People love me regardless of if I am "annoying" or not. Friction, microwelds in the surfaces of our intimacy as our lives slide across each other, is inevitable. It is not only possible for me to be annoying, but should it be dichotomously thrust upon me, I have a personal responsiblity to myself as an organism experiencing it's own life to be annoying. Sade would argue that this friction, caused by rough surfaces and non-spherical people, can actually be found to be enjoyable so long as it has meaning. This is also the stance of Frankl. One of the virtues I often discredit is my bravery, my ability to embrace the unknown and go about life, to encounter danger and not let it loom over me, to have my car crashed and feel nearly nothing, this gung-ho nature. I'm a very honest person as well I believe, probably to my own fault. I think i'm quite smart, and I can interrogate systems deeply. There is a reason that I am on purpose. More than these select few people being on purpose in my life, more of my life should be acted with purpose, and a simple first step is to assume responsibility for chaos around me, so long as that responsibility isn't disempowering me.

Being a housewife is taking responsibility but that's disempowering me. That is to fraction out my life into shards of other people's time, time they may be wasting. Time they do not appreciate. Time that simply disappears because they do not have the will that I have. Part of my role in this world is to guide other people to my understanding so that we can all live together, well, and fulfilled, but that fulfillment must also include me before I start to make any sacrifices.